


Marching On

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [84]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Rebuilding, Recovery, Woman Out of Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-03-29 23:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19029829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: Maria Hill may be five years out of date, but she refuses to become obsolete.





	Marching On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



At Tony's memorial service, Steve acts distant. Somehow there’s always a table or a clump of people between him and Maria. When he shakes Nick's hand and says, “Glad to see you back in one piece,” he nods to Maria, including her in the statement.

It’s a funeral. She doesn’t push.

Steve has a bed at the Stark-Potts house overnight. Maria and Sharon—who is coming up for Natasha’s memorial service the next day—have a hotel room a few miles down the road.

Steve stands with the other three remaining original Avengers at the second service, and disappears into the woods almost immediately afterwards.

When he returns that night, he has new lines on his face.

 

 

“How long did you stay?”

Steve takes a long draft of Asgardian mead out of a skin.

(Maria has been informed that the entire Asgardian race is living in a colony on the coast of Norway now. If she’d been around to consult… well, there’s no use pondering ‘what if’s.)

Steve says, "Four years."

“What were you doing?”

He takes another long sip. “Maria… you were dead for five years.”

“I didn’t ask why.”

He scowls. Sometime in the nine years since she’s last spoken to him, he’s started letting his emotions show on his face much more than he used to.

“I was with Peggy. We tried to make things work. We couldn’t.”

He drinks again. His head lolls back against his lounger and he looks at the stars over the lake with dull eyes.

Maria sits with a stiff spine in a wicker chair on the Stark-Potts porch and imagines that she can feel the planet turning under her feet.

 

 

Steve passes the mantle of Captain America to Sam. He assures Colonel Rhodes that he’s still willing to work with the Avengers Initiative, but it’ll be under a new codename.

He keeps avoiding Maria. She tries to talk to him, but he brushes her off, or has something else he has to do 'right now, sorry.'

She gives up and leaves. She has work to do.

From what she's told, Steve leaves less than a week later.

 

 

The world has changed more in five years than anyone could have imagined, but it has also stayed the same. Stark Industries is still a leader. Maria doesn’t even know how to describe what has become of Coulson’s SHIELD. There are people on the moon and people in the stars, parallel universes punching through to theirs. There are people with incredible abilities and people who want to take advantage of the chaos to make their names, or make a buck.

Maria Hill may be five years out of date, but she will never become obsolete.

The Avengers are still a force in this new world. Natasha is to thank for that. For five years, she kept up a network with their allies in space, the Skrulls and the Guardians. She cemented ties with the new Republic of Wakanda, liaised with the UN and governments around the world. With Tony and Peppers’ help, she founded an Avengers cadet program for young people with powers, giving them the training to assist first responders with disaster relief and rescue operations. Natasha turned the Avengers from enhanced vigilantes to the shining heroes of the new world, with almost no help and very few people wearing the trademarked A.

Maria will never be an Avenger. She could, but it’s not where she wants to be. She could never replace the Black Widow.

But the world does need someone to carry on Natasha Romanov’s work, and that’s a mantle Maria is honored to bear.

 

 

Steve does come back eventually. Two years later, around the time when a cleaned-up Winter Soldier joins the new Captain America running around after Hydra again. Steve appears at Colonel Rhodes' office at the D.C. facility. Jim sends him to Maria.

Her office is in Atlanta at the operations center, where they work closely with the newly developed SWORD. Steve is quiet as they tour him through the facility. Maria’s second-in-command Daisy reads him in on the organizational structure. When they sit down in a conference room with pastries and coffee, Maria’s deputy heads—a half-shifted Skrull and a NuHuman psychic—watch him with curiosity and a small amount of awe.

Maria is prepared for any of several different responses from the former Captain America. But she’ll admit to being pleased by what he says.

“You’ve got a good set-up here. I’m ready to get back to work. Got anywhere I might fit in?”

Daisy still looks suspicious, but Maria clears her throat. Steve wait patiently, his eyes clear and at peace.

“I have a few ideas.”


End file.
